“The terrible thing is they a major burden ... and yet these are avoidable.

“The lifestyle things we need to do are things our grandparents knew, but I think in our busy lives that commonsense has got lost.”

The institute’s Professor Garry Jennings said it was through learning about the spiral of disease that people could start to understand how important it was to make the healthy choice the regular one.

Prof Jennings said increased weight gain could lead to blood glucose intolerance, which led to type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and abnormal blood fats.

Obesity wasn’t just about not fitting into your old clothes. Excess weight gain triggered a range of immune responses that could damage organs, increase the risk of cancer, damage arteries that led to heart or kidney disease, and increase blood pressure, raising the chance of a stroke.

“Over a lifetime, a person’s wellbeing often takes the shape of a spiral,” Prof Jennings said. “For many people, this is a downward movement, with factors that are small to begin with growing into larger problems.

“However, by adopting some healthy choices and practices, this spiral can be transformed into an upwards-moving one. It’s never too late to take action.”

Girls born today will live, on average, into their mid 90s. Boys will typically live to see their 91st birthday.

Prof Marwick said there was more incentive than ever to make sure the one life we got was as healthy as possible.

“Some people say to me; cardiovascular disease is a disease of old age and you have to die of something,” Prof Marwick said. “That’s true, but you don’t have to be sick for the last 20 years of your life.”